What I read in August 2023
I read 15 books in August, which I’m pleased with. I made a conscious effort to read some books that have been on my physical and digital TBR piles for a while, and plan to continue this into autumn.
The main things I wrote this month were a micro creative non-fiction patchwork for Emotional Madness, which seemed to go down well, and a 500-word flash story for a challenge.
I find challenges valuable for the impetus to write something that I wouldn’t have done otherwise, and for the feedback. Even so, the part of me that craves adulation has an unhelpful tendency to jump to ‘ugh, why do I bother?!’ when I don’t place/win.
I know, deep down, that loads of really talented writers will have entered, and that what I’ve written just might not “chime” with what the particular judges are looking for, rather than it being objectively bad. No writing is ever truly wasted.
The God of No Good, by Sita Walker - 4*
Mirror Image, by Gunnar Staalesen, translated by Don Bartlett - 4*
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin - believe the hype. 5*
The Lost Archive, by Lynn C. Miller - 4*
Vita and the Birds, by Polly Crosby - 4*
The Clocks in This House All Tell Different Times, by Xan Brooks - 4*
Someone Like Her, by Awais Khan - 3.5*
The Tyranny of Lost Things, by Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett - 5*
Unexplained Deaths: How one woman changed homicide investigation forever, by Bruce Goldfarb - 4*
Raising Demons, by Shirley Jackson - funny, but not as good as Life Among the Savages. 4*
Do Not Go Quietly: An Anthology of Victory in Defiance, edited by Jason Sizemore and Lesley Conner - 4*
Unsettled Ground, by Claire Fuller - 4*
Normal Rules Don’t Apply, by Kate Atkinson - 5*
The Opposite of Lonely, by Doug Johnstone 4*
The Whispering Muse, by Laura Purcell - 3.5*
Looking ahead…
As mentioned above, this month I’m going to try to read some more books I’ve had on the pile for a while. I’m going to see where the mood takes me with those!
But I’ll definitely be reading Promise, by Christi Nogle, and The Raging Storm, by Ann Cleeves (actually, I’ve already started that one) for blog tours.
Cassandra Khaw has been on my radar for a little while, but her fab contribution to Do Not Go Quietly has given me the push to read her latest collection, Breakable Things.